


dumb (or just younger)

by unclaimednonsense



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Arthur Morgan Does Not Have Tuberculosis, Arthur Morgan has been through it, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, cowboys who need therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29395365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unclaimednonsense/pseuds/unclaimednonsense
Summary: Maybe John was right, maybe he was just feeling what the rest of them had been all along. Just a taste of his own medicine, playing second fiddle.
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan





	dumb (or just younger)

**Author's Note:**

> what I'm so taken with right now is how we've all played the same game, with a very rich player character, but Arthur's internal monologue is so colored by our own, so each of us perceive the moment when Arthur begins to distrust Dutch happening at a slightly different juncture. For me it's the parley. And I have feelings about it.
> 
> This is some weak writing on my part because it's been y e a r s since I've written fic (and also because my brain is bad) but I wanted it up. It will probably go through edits as I remember things I don't like about it. Or I might just write a different thing altogether. who knows! forgive the over-telling and under-showing. there are also several run-on sentences and there's definitely an abrupt tense-change in there. everything here is a nightmare. ~~I promise I am a writer.~~

Maybe John was right, maybe he was just feeling what the rest of them had all along. Just a taste of his own medicine, playing second fiddle.

Arthur's doing all the heavy lifting. Maybe he always has, maybe Dutch has always wanted to keep his hands clean and Hosea hasn't been well enough for a while, but it feels awful lonely, suddenly.

He'd been _special_. For a long time. Dutch's boy. Lyle Morgan had hardly been a father, so Dutch, young as he'd been when they first met, had slotted in perfectly, with all the praise and warm smiles and familiar affection he had to give. Everyone needs somewhere to belong, Dutch had told him so. Arthur thought he belonged here.

Now he's no one's boy, it seems, just a fixer. On principle he doesn't mind that. He likes how it feels to know everyone trusts him, even if he wants no part in most of their requests. It's the knowledge that they think he can do anything, that's what makes him feel like his life isn't completely without merit.

It doesn't seem to unsettle anyone else, the sway Micah so suddenly has on Dutch, the increasingly manic behavior, the plans that seem poorly considered. John's been the only one to bring it up at all, but he wasn't anxious about his status. He never could keep up. This wasn't new, even if it was Micah instead of Arthur. After all the shit Arthur had given him for over a decade about being the golden boy, being lucky, being favored, it seemed to John like he deserved a kick in the teeth and this was as good as any.

He'd been ignoring all of it like he did most of his feelings, pressed them down and carried on, but being shot and beaten and tortured by O'Driscolls because Dutch and Micah had insisted _he_ look out for _them_ , that had cracked his resolve.

They'd kept him flying high on morphine and moonshine for weeks, enough that he couldn't form a coherent thought about anything, much less the betrayal, having to escape alone, trust his horse would find her way back to camp from wherever they were. Trap or not, it was all he could think as Dutch hovered over him, Arthur lying in the dirt as the women scrambled to help him. _Where were you?_

_I thought you loved me._

Still, he got up again, as soon as he could, and did as Dutch asked. That was what he was good for, after all. Killed just about the entire population of Rhodes, even with the alternating dull ache and sharp pain of pulling stitches radiating from the wound on his shoulder and the blood of a brother soaking the clay in front of him.

At least he hadn't had to bury him. On this one occasion, someone else had done the dirty work.

He didn't feel the same after that. Couldn't pull out of it, the thick, swampy air seeming to give everything a miserable yellow tinge he hadn't noticed before. Sean wasn't the first person to die violently in front of him, Arthur had long since lost count of that mark, and it usually didn't stick with him very long, but he kept waking up with the same heaviness in his shoulders, numbness in his legs, like nothing around him was real. 

It makes him feel pathetic, but the longer it goes on the more it gets under his skin, the way Dutch isn't paying him any attention as he broods. He feels so stupid, needing his approval. He's a grown man. But that was what this had always been about, wasn't it? Trying to please Dutch, to be smart enough or good enough to do his bidding. To make him happy. Ensure he'd keep loving him as a son. As long as he was indispensable, he'd have something to call a family.

He hadn't felt so indispensable lately. Did Dutch ever hope, he wondered, that Arthur wouldn't come back? Was that why he'd looked so surprised when he'd arrived home more than half-dead from blood loss and exposure?

Dutch has been the only one who's never made a move to abandon him, stood by his side and promised him as much, and now he's putting distance between them. He doesn't do well without an explanation for it so he starts inventing them, increasingly self-hating and miserable. It's no _wonder_ they all leave. He's not good for anything. He's a tool, a blunt object, nothing more. He's killed too many men to be shown any kindness.

It's nothing major that sets him off in the end. Dutch had sequestered himself in his tent for the third straight day, planning God knows what, maybe the next of them to get murdered in the street. It's Molly making a beeline for him as he's finishing his coffee to complain about it, insist he do something because _apparently_ he's the only one who _does_ anything here, everyone else is helpless, and Molly's the only victim of Dutch's inattention, in the narrative she's subjecting him to. He just can't take it anymore, storms out of camp and off into the woods by the shoreline. He needs to get away or he's going to come undone. 

With the trees between him and the rest of them, he can barely make out the sounds of surprise from the others. What a fucking display that was. He sits in the grass, picks out the tracked-up pebbles from the shoreline and tosses them one by one into the water, trying to focus on the ripples hard enough it'll push the rest of it out of his mind. He thought it'd feel less suffocating out here, looking over the water, away from their prying eyes, but the tightness in his chest doesn't release. 

"Okay, Morgan?" John's rough drawl comes from behind him, a little too soon, like he'd followed him. It feels a little like insult to injury, that he feels like this, so raw and wounded and abandoned, and who should come to his rescue but fucking John. John, the bastard he'd looked for in every town they rode into, worked himself into a panic more than once over thinking he might be dead.

He doesn't answer, just whips another stone into the shallow water. John's had no sympathy for this ache he can't get rid of. But John doesn't go anywhere, because he has never taken a hint, not once in his life.

They're both quiet for a few minutes, Arthur trying to keep his mind clear, doesn't want his face to betray him. John eventually does move from wherever he is back there, standing beside Arthur for a moment before lowering himself too, spindly legs stretched out in front of him, so open next to Arthur, with his knees up and an arm slung over each of them. 

"Not okay?" John asks, leaning back on the heels of his hands, glancing at Arthur over his shoulder. 

"When's the last time it was?" Arthur asks, stewing in his misery. Maybe if he's harsh enough John'll leave.

"I dunno. You never tell me."

Of course that's what this is about. Getting Arthur alone to maybe weasel his way back in without an apology or an explanation. Trying to mimic what they had before. Like maybe Arthur would forget if they sat by the water, went hunting, drank enough whiskey, maybe fell into bed together again.

_Yeah, right_.

But there's no one else here, and _fuck_ it's lonely, carrying this. His shoulders ache with the weight of the gang and Dutch's expectations and everything he should have done differently.

"We're makin' such a mess of this." He mutters. He's written it down already, more than once. His journal's grown increasingly negative, the last ten or fifteen pages full of all the things he hates about himself. It doesn't even sound like the same guy who wrote hopefully about Blackwater, trying to will himself into believing it'd all be fine because he _knew_ they could trust Dutch with their lives. 

"How do you mean?" Arthur glares at him for a moment, the same way he's been looking at him since they were boys. If Arthur's dumb, he doesn't even know what John is.

"Sean's dead, John. Pinkertons must know where we are by now. I don't think Dutch has a plan at all, this ain't--" he sighs, waving a hand dismissively with the limited mobility in this position. 

"Yeah, I know."

Arthur wants to be angry, expects it to rise up in his throat, but it just... doesn't. There's something heavy sitting on top of it. John's not making any move to leave. He whips another stone and fixes his eyes on the water again, and the impulse takes him before he can stop it.

"Dutch was gonna leave me to die out there."

John furrows his brow. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't _know_ , John, just--" he has to stop and take a deep breath, else he thinks he might lose control of the whole thing, his heart pounding a little too hard. "He let 'em have me and he wad'n't gonna come for me."

"He'd never leave you out there, Arthur. None of us would." John's always so earnest. It just makes him sound dumber.

"Yeah, you're a real authority on that." Arthur mutters bitterly, just barely keeping his voice from shaking.

John seems to take it personally, just blinks slowly, silent for a few long moments, obviously hurt. "There's nothin' I can say, Arthur."

"How about an explanation?" He snaps, looking at John with a sharpness to his eyes he's not used to. "How about _I'm_ _sorry_?" 

It finally clicks for John, almost certainly too late, that that's why Arthur's still not speaking to him, why when everyone else has forgiven him he refuses to look at him with anything but disdain.

The timing did line up, come to think of it. He'd been crawling into Arthur's tent since he was a boy, but it was only in the year after Jack was born that they'd started doing that with such intention, John always itching to get his hands on Arthur, Arthur uncharacteristically pliant and cooperative under him, acting like John was doing him a favor. Arthur had been used to it, spent years messing around with men in rooms above saloons, sometimes for money, sometimes not, and it was always a little too much for John to handle, the way he took him without a fuss and urged him on and gave him control. How handsome and sculpted he looked in the lamplight.

Arthur trusted him.

No, it wasn't just that. Arthur trusted him, and then he'd walked out that night, didn't even say goodbye first. He'd thought about slipping into his tent for old time's sake and kissing him one last time, but he hadn't. Because Arthur would have jerked awake and stopped him. John didn't want to be stopped.

"Arthur, it... it was never about you."

" _Bullshit_." Arthur's wiping his eyes roughly. John wishes he wouldn't. Always too rough with himself. 

"I was scared, Arthur, just... Jack, and Abigail wantin' me to be a father when I didn't know what I wanted, and..." That's the problem, he thinks. He doesn't have an answer. That's why Arthur can't get one out of him, why he keeps asking. It doesn't exist. He hadn't had a reason, not really. He'd just... left, and hadn't known how to come back. "It was never about you. Not for a second."

Arthur doesn't seem satisfied and he's getting antsy, muscles twitching like his anxiety's spiking, like he used to see when they went out on jobs as much younger men. John tentatively reaches out to lay a hand on his back, starts rubbing slowly when Arthur doesn't recoil right away.

"You shouldn't do that." He says gruffly, so suddenly John is confused for a moment.

"Why not?" He asks, still working circles over his spine. "Can't be nice to you?" Arthur blows out a rough breath. _No_ , he _can't_ , because the slightest kindness is going to break him apart.

"I can't do anythin' right, John, I--" he chokes on a sob and the sound sends a shot of pain radiating from John's chest to his fingertips on Arthur's shirt. "Sean's dead, everything fuckin' hurts, can't make Dutch happy no matter what I do, he won't even look at me, an' I'm tryin' _so_ _hard_." He's covered his face with one hand and he's shaking terribly, gasping for breath.

For his part John's seen Arthur cry twice before. Both after Eliza and Isaac, both he wasn't supposed to have seen. The first when he stumbled into camp looking a lot drunker than he was and collapsed into Hosea's arms, weeping inconsolably. God knows how long he'd stayed there, because John was abruptly sent to bed, left to sit by the flap of his tent listening as Hosea and Dutch seemed to trade places sitting with him for hours like an infant refusing to settle. The second was maybe three days later, when Arthur was busy pretending nothing had ever happened. John hadn't bought it for a second and snuck over to his tent one night and heard his hard, gasping, shuddering sobs, muffled by something, maybe a blanket. It had sounded awful, like he couldn't wear himself out. John had wanted to help, go in and hang on to him like Arthur did for him sometimes, but he'd been too scared. Instead he'd sat outside, sniffling quietly to himself, until he got sleepy and Arthur had quieted.

"Shhh, alright. Hey." He doesn't know how to sound comforting, just hopes he's not landing on annoyed. He hooks an arm around Arthur's shoulders, pulling him in, trying to tuck him into his shoulder. To his surprise Arthur comes willingly, awkwardly sinking against him. They stay like that for a minute or so, Arthur trembling silently, holding his breath against everything forcing its way out.

"C'mere," John mutters, although it seems silly, he's not going anywhere. He shifts, lowering himself onto an elbow, stretching out on his side in the warm grass. Arthur's head hangs low, trying to hide as he follows. John knows what he's doing. It's only fine if no one can see.

Problem is they're nose-to-nose now and John can see everything, every fine line on his face, where the tears have left tracks through the dust on his cheeks, moisture in his eyes threatening to spill over again.

Arthur's always been the strongest man John knows, even when he was still more a boy than a man, but John forgets everything Arthur's seen and done. What he must be thinking about when he's quiet and in a sour mood. Maybe remembering watching his mama die, finding his son bloody and lifeless, getting beat up and abandoned by his daddy, then Mary, and then _him_ , too. So many scabs that kept getting ripped off before they could finish healing, and he looks so vulnerable, the steel gone from his eyes, jaw loose so his lips stay parted just a little.

John sighs and brings his free hand up behind Arthur's neck, carding his fingers through his short-cropped hair, holds his head steady so he can lean in until their foreheads touch. Arthur's lip starts to quake again, John knows from the tenderness, and he can feel him tensing under his hands. He's quieted himself for the moment, he'd rather keep it that way.

"Always been too hard on yourself," John murmurs, stroking the back of his neck, and Arthur makes a pitiful sound, the smallest cut-off moan of pain. John swallows hard, nudges his body closer against Arthur's, fighting the urge to tangle their legs together. _Maybe later._ "You're doin' so good for us."

"Then why's he keep sendin' me out to my death, John?" Arthur's looking at him now, so little roughness in his voice, and John's heart skips. He knows how much Dutch's approval means to Arthur, how he built himself on it when he was just a scrawny wretched thing, being the person his mentor loved the most, trusted the most, and now it's slipping out of his hands and he's unmoored. Hosea loved them better all along but Dutch was something mythical for Arthur. It felt like such an honor to be his favorite son, the only thing he had in this godforsaken world he'd been brought into by mistake.

John doesn't have an answer but Arthur's still watching him, so he gives another firm tug and is surprised again when Arthur goes with it, letting his face be pressed back into John's shoulder. John can feel the alternating heat and cold of his breath as it slows, has to stop himself from saying something pitying. 

"Doin' okay, Morgan?" He tries again, when it seems Arthur's settled for good, started to turn his head just a little to peek out from the fabric and blink against the light. 

"Spent." He murmurs, and he sounds that way, all the power drained from his voice. 

"Just stay here for a little, then. No one'll see." John would have him stay there forever, he thinks. He's overwhelmed with it, the way Arthur's powerful frame has folded into his arms. Save for his tears soaking John's shirt, it feels like how things were, before. And he _loves_ Arthur. He's always loved Arthur, revered him even. He's just never told him so.

But it's uncomfortable, considering those feelings, acknowledging that it's the same brave, strong, perfect Arthur who's been protecting and kicking him in equal measures all his life hanging onto John like he's the only thing he's sure of. So instead he presses his nose against Arthur's hair for a moment -- always neat and cleaner than any outlaw's should be -- then tilts his head to make eye contact with the man tucked so close against him.

"Maybe we ought'a get out of here." Arthur lifts his head to look at him quizzically. "Not like _that_. Just thought we could ride out somewhere, us two." John knows he's on thin ice, even after all this, and Arthur's still well within his rights to tell him to fuck off for propositioning him.

He doesn't. "What for?" He asks, even though John's sure he knows what's being offered.

"Well we could _tell_ 'em we're going huntin', I figure."

"Tell 'em, huh? And do what, then?"

"This is why Dutch was gonna leave you out there, you ask too many goddamn questions." Arthur barks out a laugh and _God_ John can't help but crack a grin, too, it feels like the sun's just come out again. " _I_ got a plan you're gonna like and you're still bitchin'."

Arthur finally smirks, his eyes twinkling with mischief, and presses his face into John's shoulder. "Go on, then, Johnny. Tell me all about your _plan_."


End file.
